final fantasy vii drabbles
by meruhen
Summary: A series of mostly unrelated drabbles primary focusing on cloud, with mentions of the rest of the cast and various pairings.
1. heroism

Zack dreams about being a knight in shining armor, a hero: he dreams of conquering evil, rescuing the fair princess, bringing peace and hope, _happiness_ to the world.

Reality is a lot different, but Zack is easy to adapt. His dreams change shape to meld with the world around him. He doesn't dream of conquering evil, because he works for it, and instead tries to make the evil a little less gruesome; he finds the fair princess, but can't really rescue her - she doesn't need it, doesn't want it, and so he buys flowers from her and makes her laugh. He doesn't bring peace, or hope, or happiness to the world, but to a few people; a general who can't ever seem to smile, a cadet who doesn't smile for reasons so different than the general's, but so essentially the same. He drags a body, lifeless and ungainly, halfway across the world, something they never mentioned in any stories or movies and that certainly doesn't match up with what a hero should be doing. But he does it, because he can't do anything else.

Zack plays the hero when he can, where he can, and none of it matches up with what his dreams once were.

(When he dies, in that split second after his last breath leaves his body and his body shuts down, when blue eyes widen with recognition, he thinks: this is the only thing I'd ever change.)

* * *

Sephiroth doesn't dream of heroes, or knights in shining armor, or princesses, or even the bad guys. There is no thought to save the world, no desire to make people happy.

He knows he's supposed to be a hero, set up as the shining example of the ShinRa Army, even if he is in truth nothing but a murderer; he knows that the fair princesses don't need help - the princesses he knows need to be squired off by someone evil, with promises of never returning them (and when he mentions that to Zack, as Scarlet walks out of his office, the man can't help but laugh and laugh and Sephiroth is puzzled: he didn't think it funny at all). He even knows the truth about the bad guys: they don't exist.

Sephiroth doesn't play the hero, doesn't care if reality matches up with dreams, and doesn't even realize who the bad guys really are, especially when he is playing one.

(They are not on the battlefield, not the ones to hide away the princesses, not even the big bad corporation that seeks to control the world. They are in the labs, deep and dark and hidden, scientists not to be trusted. But Sephiroth is too far gone to think about that.)

* * *

Cloud knows about heroes (the shining general in the Wutai war) and knights in shining armor (his SOLDIERS) and princesses (mayor's daughter) and bad guys (what feels like everyone in the world, sometimes) and he wants to be one.

Maybe then he wouldn't be ostracized, as outcast by his home and the world, and wouldn't need someone to rescue him, and maybe - maybe, he could impress that princess. But secretly, deep down in his heart, he knows he isn't cut out for that role. Cloud isn't meant for heroism anymore than a fish is made to walk. He knows the real heroes when he sees them: the general who never fails to be intimidating, or even the SOLDIER who befriends him.

Cloud wouldn't know what to do with the role of hero if it were handed to him; he doesn't know what to do, when it is thrust upon his shoulders and everyone is looking at him for help.

(He thinks it is Zack who guides him, influences him, because it comes out okay in the end; he leaves the buster sword on those cliffs overlooking Midgar with the words "You're the real hero, my friend," and refuses to listen to the wind that whispers, "Not true, not true.")


	2. always watching

Cloud watches people, from his corner of 7th Heaven; he watches people, because avoiding them is slightly impossible. He watches and tries to ignore the eyes watching him back.

The eyes on him don't bother him, or at least he tries to tell himself that; it's not true, but Cloud doesn't like the truth. It seems as much a weakness as anything else. He's a hero, he tells himself, and the Zack voice in his head laughs and agrees, and hero's are always watched.

But he's always been shy; less painfully so now, because life taught him he was worth something and people do listen to him and the world respects him. But still, he's always been shy and he thinks that always will be a part of him, a trait never fully examined, never grown out of, never likely to simply leave behind, no matter what happens.

The eyes don't bother him, just make him slightly uncomfortable, hyper-aware of everything; his movements and the movements of people around him and if he were more high-strung than he was, Cloud thinks most people would not survive around him. And so he watches them and doesn't shift uncomfortably and when someone laughs too loudly or moves too suddenly, he stiffens but doesn't react. And he lets their curiosity, the simple curiousness of simple people, wash over him, because even if the eyes and the curiosity and the watching make him uncomfortable, they're still safer than his thoughts.

It's easier to handle these people than memories of the eyes that watched him for years; it's easier to deal with the curiosity of the people whom he saved than the probing eyes of the man he spent years chasing. He doesn't want to remember the labs or Sephiroth, or any of it, and so he lets the people stare and doesn't react.

And as time passes, he realizes, it becomes a little less difficult to not react and it becomes a little easier to let the eyes slide off his back. But the memories don't become any easier to deal with; the eyes that haunt his mind don't fade at all.

He wonders if that is something he should be concerned about; but it's only a passing thought and he ignores it in favor of concentrating on resolutely not thinking. That's always safe.


	3. trust in nothing

It isn't that he intentionally means to not trust them; it's that he doesn't even think about it. Trust isn't something Cloud has ever given a thought to, mostly because he has known for most of his life that trust is something that should never be given.

He sees the hurt in Tifa's eyes when he turns away from, walking into something dangerous without telling her, or anyone even; he sees the hurt when he brushes aside her advances of friendship, when he refuses to let anyone inside when he is suffering something.

There are different expressions in his friend's eyes; a lack of judgment and something not quite, but almost akin to, pity, the desire to get past that lack of trust. There's no understanding, because the one who would understand isn't around (and sometimes Cloud wishes he was; to not feel quite as alone in the situation would be nice, if possible, and that thought alone twists in his gut. He knows his friends don't want to disturb him even more, especially with something as sensitive as his trust issues).

Zack had been the one he trusted, the only one, it feels like. Because he had no choice (it's hard to not trust someone when they drag you around, unconscious and as helpful as a baby) is what Cloud tells himself, but he knows it's not true. Zack he trusted because it was Zack, and his friend.

And Aeris he had trusted, maybe even loved, but those feelings were more complicated than anything he cares to think about. Aeris had inspired trust in so many of them and kept them going even after all was said and done. Sometimes, when the alcohol in the drinks Tifa pours for him is just a little too strong even for his metabolism, he wonders if things could have been different; if, maybe, Aeris could not have been so trustworthy. But those thoughts lead him down a trail even he doesn't care to wander down, and even when not entirely sober, Cloud can push them aside (maybe not as easily as anything he's ever done, but there have been harder things, like watching her die and remembering Zack's death and the final killing thrust of his sword into Sephiroth-)

Sephiroth, though, Sephiroth he never trusted; Sephiroth he admired and idolizied but never truly trusted and he refuses to think differently.


End file.
